The role of sleep oscillations in temporal lobe organization

即使在我们睡觉的时候，大脑也没有休息。相反，在睡眠期间，大脑充满了同步的神经活动，以缓慢振荡的形式出现。长期以来，人们一直认为这些振荡有助于加强或“巩固”记忆，但大脑中与慢波有关的区域以及它们所经历的处理过程仍未得到解决。在经历中活跃的新皮层神经元在这些睡眠振荡中“重新激活”，这表明强化记忆痕迹的一种方式。虽然这种现象最初是在大鼠的海马体中发现的——海马体是一种帮助形成新记忆的结构，但我继续证明，重新激活是一个同步的过程，贯穿于新皮层的大片分离区域。这也是灵长类动物记忆痕迹再激活的第一次证明，如果再激活是人类记忆巩固的一个重要前提。

Even when we sleep, the brain is not at rest. On the contrary, during sleep, the brain is full of synchronized neural activity that takes the shape of slow oscillations. These oscillations have long been associated with helping memories to strengthen, or 'consolidate', yet the brain regions involved during slow waves and the processing they undergo is still unresolved. Neurons in the neocortex that were active during an experience 'reactivate' during these sleep oscillations, suggesting one way of strengthening a memory trace. Although this phenomenon was first seen in the rat hippocampus - a structure that helps in forming new memories, I went on to show that reactivation occurs as a synchronized process throughout large, separated regions of the neocortex. This was also the first demonstration of memory trace reactivation in primates, an important prerequisite if reactivation underlies the consolidation of memories in humans.